Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 223

What Is the True Picture of the Creator?

We never speak about how things appear from the Creator’s side, what He feels, or what He is. We speak about what the created being feels from Him, or about how the created being imagines the Creator’s state, but not about His state outside the created being. At times we think all sorts of things about a friend that do not truly reflect who he is. We speculate about his thoughts, feelings, and troubles, and when we come a little closer to him, we discover that none of it was true. It was all merely a picture we had drawn in our imagination.

There is the matter of knowing something from within ourselves, from imagining that something is one way or another, and there is the true picture. We never see or know the true picture of the Creator. We can only know the Creator through ourselves, what we think about the Creator, how we understand the Creator, and so on. The truest picture that we are capable of attaining, without our vessels distorting what the Creator wishes us to feel from Him, is the state of final correction. The Host wishes to serve a five-course meal, each course perfect in every respect. We receive it and feel the Host’s attitude toward us through it. Beyond that is beyond our ability.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 222
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 221
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 220

Question: What does it mean: “The Creator helps a person with a holy soul”

Answer: It means that after a person makes every possible effort, it is revealed to them that it is necessary to perform an action that is beyond human strength, above this world. They discover that what they are striving for, what they are touching, belongs, not to our reality, but to the one that is beyond the Machsom (barrier).

In other words, then it is revealed to them what the Machsom is. It is an inversion, a complete reversal in approach, in thinking, as it is said: “I saw the upside-down world.” Then a person sees that only the upper force, the Creator, can perform this action. By what means? By means of a “holy soul,” that is, by giving them completely different powers, thoughts, and abilities that they did not have before.

This is what is called the new soul—a “holy soul”: instead of the nature directed toward working for the sake of receiving with which He created man, the Creator now gives him a second nature that works for the sake of bestowal. This is the “holy soul,” when a person receives the strength to work for the sake of bestowal.

Question: Is this somehow connected to the group?

Answer: No, here we are talking about the relationship between a person and the Creator. Neither the teacher nor the group has anything to do with it. Both the teacher and the group are merely means for bringing a person into contact with the Creator.

Of course, he must constantly rely on them, be connected with them, but the essence lies in the relationship between the Kli of a person’s soul and the light, that is, the Creator. There is nothing else.
[360668]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/17/26, Rabash, “What Are Commandments that a Person Tramples with His Feet”

Related Material:
Help with the Holy Soul
When The Dawn Comes
Hold on to Every Moment of the Path

Our work before the Machsom and after the Machsom differs each time. After the Machsom, where there are Kelim [vessels, plural of Kli] of bestowal and Kelim of reception, everything is different. After I have attained awareness of the greatness of the Creator, the action itself is already performed differently. Before that, there is nothing to discuss, for I am striving in the wrong direction. First I must direct myself, and only then do I fly there. This must be done before everything else.

I worked with airplanes for several years in the Israeli Air Force. Imagine an airplane sitting on the ground completely unoriented regarding the cardinal directions; the pilot in the cockpit does not know where he is, the directions are unknown to him. He exists within a three-dimensional sphere, knowing nothing about it.

Should he fly? No; in this situation, it is better for him to remain in place because moving even a millimeter could lan him who knows where. So, first of all, he must check the location of the goal toward which he needs to head.

And so we direct ourselves: this is our goal, in the direction of it we now apply effort, and only then do we begin to move.

However, this goal is concealed; the Creator is hidden. I don’t have the slightest notion of similarity of form; it does not attract me; the issue doesn’t even exist for me. The group must provide me with this Hisaron, this need. My point in the heart only feels that something is missing.

The first nine Sefirot must reveal what is lacking in my point in the heart. They must tell Malchut: “This is what you lack.” And these first nine Sefirot, in relation to me, are embodied by the group. Nothing else will help me.

If my friends do not provide me with this, I must seek another group. Either I organize them so that they give me the importance of the goal, or I must leave them and seek another group where the importance of the goal already exists; and if not, then I will bring it there. And the group will hear that this is important and that work must be done on it.
[360764]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/26, Rabash, “What Is ‘Return, O Israel, Unto the Lord Your God,’ in the Work?”

Related Material:
A Spiritual Orientation Toward The Creator
The Three Components Of The Ascent
The Flight Path Into The Spiritual

Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 222

What Is the Difference Between Before and After the Barrier?

Before the barrier, a person passes through two principal and very important stages:

1) Double concealment
2) Single concealment

These two stages provide us with all the vessels and discernments, which we later enlarge in spirituality and upon which we dress additional discernments. The transgressions and mistakes that we make on our spiritual path toward the barrier are the actual vessels that we will use later.

The difference between before and after the barrier is not only in these vessels. The point is that before the barrier, when we are in concealment and the Creator is not revealed, we might sometimes feel something in relation to the Creator. Our sensation of the Creator is that of the surrounding light (Ohr Makif) and not of the inner light (Ohr Pnimi), because we still lack a screen (Masach).

After the barrier, we acquire a screen. The acquisition of the first screen is called crossing the barrier, and afterward additional screens are added. Then, according to the strength of our screen, we can receive inner light, which is a clear and tangible sensation of Godliness.